Chasing Tails

[niyazi-a.livejournal.com]

IDW
PG-13
Terrorcons, Banzaitron, Sixshot
innuendo. more innuendo.
for gestalt_love 's May Challenge! *squeaks in under the wire*

Banzaitron sighed, looking at the roster.  Seriously? The only witnesses were the Terrorcons?  Primus clearly hated his only begotten Banzaitron. Well, there was nothing to be gained by delay, which was a nice way of saying the sooner he started it, the sooner he could end it, slap the whole thing down in a file with a security seal. 

The shuttle had exploded, on a hub entirely controlled by Decepticons.  Sabotage.  He glared his way through the evidence pictures, freezing the holovids, walking around them, considering.  Ballistics and demolitions analysis were pending, due shortly, and all he had to add to the story the chemicals and their incendiary relationship told would be the who, how, and most importantly why.  The living element.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, he thought.  Then started laughing. Who the frag was he kidding?

[***]

Cutthroat glowered over the back of the chair, that cliché tough-guy way of backstraddling a chair, keeping its high back like a wall between himself and Banzaitron.  Defensive, much?

Banzaitron settled back in his own seat, observing the Terrorcon over his steepled fingers.  Waiting.

Which wasn’t anywhere near as long as he’d expected. 

“What the frag you want?”

“What do you think I want?”

“Whatever it is? I don’t got it.”

Quite possibly.  Banzaitron rolled his optics behind his red mask.  “Right. Your team was on the Kaph-Renn Wheel when the drop shuttle exploded.”

“Were we?” A flat, serpent’s glare. 

Urgh.  Just what Banzaitron needed.  “Unless you were AWOL?” He returned a poisonously sweet smile. 

The glare hardened. “Maybe we were there.” 

“It’s distinctly possible. Now.  Were you on the shuttle?”

“When?”

Oh, dear Primus. “Well, I was thinking about, you know, before it exploded.” Seriously, we’re on the same side, here, Cutthroat. Work with me. 

Or, apparently, not. “Been on a lot of shuttles.” 

Banzaitron released a vent of air.  Not frustrated: he wouldn’t give the Terrorcon the satisfaction.  He pushed up, leaning forward, his gaunt elbows on the console, his optics bright and malevolent. “That’s all right, Cutthroat,” he said, with a poisonous antifreeze smile.  “Hide whatever it is you want to hide.  It might not be related to this shuttle explosion. But,” the smile quirked, “one day I will have nothing better to do than hunt out what you were up to that you’re trying to hide.” 

Cutthroat shrugged. “Wasn’t up to anything.” His return smile was just as edged. 

“Right.”  Banzaitron made a show of tapping his datapad. “You’re dismissed.”  As Cutthroat pushed out of the chair, turning to go, he added, “I’m so glad I got to talk to you first, Cutthroat.”  He’d probe the others for Cutthroat’s dirty little secret.

And for the first time, the Terrorcon’s optics held a glimmer of concern.   “Something you want to say, Cutthroat?”  Banzaitron pressed one finger to stop the record. “Off the record?”

Cutthroat’s optics glared back over his shoulder. “Yeah, I got something to say.”

Banzaitron stopped the recording.

“Suck on a photon cannon.”

Oh. This was going…well.

[***]

“It’s protocol!” Hun-Grr glowered, arms folded over his chassis. “You talk to the team leader first.” 

“You were busy.” Stuffing your face, as usual.  Seriously, Hun-Grr really should get that glitch addressed at some point.

“Then you wait.”

Oh? Hun-Grr wanted to play hardball?  Banzaitron had a fairly good backhand stroke himself. “Justice doesn’t have to wait for you to glut your appetite.” 

“Going to be like this, is it?”

Banzaitron shrugged. “Guess so.”  He let the moment stretch. “Seems an awful breakdown in military discipline in your unit, Hun-Grr.”

Hun-Grr’s face flashed to a quick snarl before he mastered it. “Plenty of discipline.  One of the higher kill ratios out there.”  His optics narrowed, chin jutting up, proud.

“Difference between destruction and discipline, Hun-Grr.  Though they do start with the same letter, so,” he gave a condescending moue, “maybe you got confused.”

Hun-Grr glared.  “This how you get mechs to cooperate with you? The ol’ Banzaitron charm?”

Banzaitron laughed. “Normally, and by that I mean normal mechs, they see that cooperating with me is in their best interests. And not cooperating with me is…not.”  As Cutthroat would eventually find out. 

Hun-Grr’s optics narrowed so tightly the lights blinked off entirely. “What do you want?”

“In a universal sense?” Banzaitron chuckled. “No, all right.  Down to business…before that alarm you call a fuel tank pings you again. The shuttle. You. Your team. Dots. Connect them.” 

Hun-Grr stared, then dropped his gaze.  “We had nothing to do with that.”

“Glad to hear. But someone sure as frag did, and I’d like to know who.”  Banzaitron didn’t take any mech at his word, but sometimes it was better to play along.

“Look. Gonna level with you. Wasn’t me; wasn’t my team. We were…uh…otherwise occupied.” 

“Oh?” 

“Take my word for it. Wasn’t us.” 

A stonewall. How…intriguing.  “I…see.”  A smirk under his red maskplate. 

“We done here?” Hun-Grr rocked to the forward edge of the chair, shuffling his feet.

Rushing the close? Oh, really.  Act more…interesting, why don’ t you, Hun-Grr?  “I don’t see why not,” he said, pleasantly.  “I can always call you back if I have more questions.”  Hun-Grr was…less than thrilled by that, his engines growling dangerously, and even less thrilled when Banzaitron added, “And maybe next time I’ll have snacks.”

[***]

Rippersnapper slumped in the chair. “I already know what this is about,” he muttered.

“Well,” Banzaitron said, pleasantly, “then that makes one of us. Care to share?”

Rippersnapper burst out laughing. “Uh, no.” 

Well, at least they were consistent. “All right. Let’s start over.  The shuttle. You weren’t there, of course.  You were…otherwise occupied.” 

Rippersnapper grinned.  “You could say that.”

“Good, because I just did.”  Progress. Finally. “And what were you doing?”

A laugh. “More of a question of ‘who’, honestly.” 

Ewwww. He’d read the files.  “Yeah, that’s not really a question.”  Sixshot. Seriously.  They should rename themselves Sixshot’s Harem.  It would at least be more accurate than ‘Terrorcons’. Terror? Hardly.

…And maybe make videos.  Banzaitron would admit to a certain—morbid—curiosity.

Rippersnapper grinned.  “Not as dumb as you look.” 

Right.  A mech would actually have to try a lot harder than that to ruffle Banzaitron. He wrote that off as just more of Terrorcon Interpersonal Skill.  “Maybe it’s just that you Terrorcons are so predictable.”  If there’s a plurality of Terrorcons, the Sixshot Fan Club has been convened. 

Rippersnapper gave an easy shrug.”Welp, anyway, rock solid alibi, if you ask me.”  He grinned broadly, tilting back in his seat, at ease. 

“Not without corroboration, it isn’t.”

“Ask away.  They’ll tell you. Unless, of course, they’re jealous.” A frown. 

“I was thinking more that they’d have a motivation to lie to protect you, actually.” 

Rippersnapper looked at him for a long moment, before bursting—well, collapsing might be more accurate—into a gale of laughter.   “Wow,” he gasped, eventually. “You, uh, you don’t really know us that well.”  Laughter snorted through his vocalizer again, wheezing ‘lie to protect me!’. 

Well. This was potentially embarrassing. Banzaitron coughed. Right.  To the matter at hand. “You realize that, ahem, intimacies while on duty are considered a dereliction of duty?”

“Yeah?” Rippersnapper snorted. “What are you going to do to us? Send us on some scut mission?”

“I could split up the team.”

Rippersnapper’s optics widened, in mock awe. “Really? You’d…you’d do that? FOR ME?”  He batted his optics, splaying one hand on his chassis in faux innocence.

Banzaitron glowered.  Nope. Worst punishment he could think of for these recalcitrant Terrorcons would be that they be stuck with each other. Forever.

Maybe, though, without Sixshot.

[***]

The Decepticon Interrogations Field Manual had several chapters devoted to the unrewarding and difficult task of interrogating other Decepticons.  Most of them gave good advice, such as Chapter 37: Interrogating Vortex: “Don’t.” But there wasn’t a section on how to deal with…Sinnertwin.

“Yeah, we were banging Sixshot. It was….HOT.”  Sinnertwin gave a toothy grin. With way more teeth than Banzaitron thought really necessary. Or even…possible. 

“All of you. At once.”  Banzaitron found himself in the incredibly awkward position of wanting—and NOT wanting—to know.

“More or less.  To be honest, parts of it are kind of, you know, hazy. Think I passed out or something.” Sinnertwin’s dual engines revved at the memory.

Oh. Quite.

“So, one of you might have…slipped out for a few kliks.” 

Sinnertwin blinked. “Why the frag we want to do that?”

“I don’t know, Sinnertwin. I was hoping you could tell me.” 

Sinnertwin shrugged looking genuinely…baffled.

“The shuttle in the dock next to you?”

“Yeah?” Four optics blinked, a sort of rolling wave of ‘huh?’.

“It blew up,” Banzaitron prompted, pitching his voice slow and patient.  Sinnertwin’s files didn’t list him as particularly dim, but…it never hurt to underestimate intelligence in some matters.

“Oh!” Sinnertwin laughed. “I thought that was….ya know, just how good he is.” 

What is my life? “Dismissed,” Banzaitron said, waving a hand.

“What? Hey don’t you want to know more? I mean like…seriously. Wingwolf?  ROWRF.”

“GO!”

[***]

Banzaitron had hoped it wouldn’t have come to this.  He’d have given anything to prevent it in fact.  But no. He’d have to talk to Blot.  Blot was his last chance.

Eurgh.  Even just saying that in his mind was depressing.

Banzaitron finished taping down the plastic sheeting over the chair, and adjusted the angles of the ventilation blowers, before chiming the, uh, uniquely-fragranced Terrorcon in. 

“OOOOOOO,” Blot stepped carefully on the plastic coating, seating himself on the chair, wriggling from side to side to hear the plastic bunch and crackle. “Nice!” 

Yes, very nice, Banzaitron thought, sourly, fretting that the plastic might tear and Blot’s…ooze would ooze itself indelibly on his office furniture.  “I’m glad you like it,” he managed, blandly. “Now.  Can I ask you a few questions?” Might as well try ‘nice’, as every other approach had failed abjectly.

“About Kaph-Renn? Sure!”  Blot bounced in the seat, releasing a—oh by Primacron that was visible stench—shimmer of foulness into the air. “We were with Sixshot!” 

“I’d heard.” And please, I’m not sure I want to hear anymore.  Deflection time. “That happen often?”

“Sixshot? No.” Blot’s face fell, and purple droplets, like tears, ran over his cheeks. Then he perked up. “This time he invited us, though!  I hope he does it again.”

“He…invited you.”  Which meant that was not just…ewww…consensual, but the Phase Sixer actually sought them out.  Ha-had anyone run a psych-stability on Sixshot recently?

“Yes! Like out of the blue and stuff, just told us to show up there and, well…,” Blot’s face scrunched up in what at first looked like a grimace before Banzaitron realized it was glee.  “Stuff happened.”

Banzaitron cleared his throat. But not, unfortunately, his cortex of that image. “Yes.  Uh. Stuff. I’d heard.”  Still.  Sixshot had invited them.  To Kaph-Renn. Where the Devil King was docked right next to the shuttle.  Well, well, Banzaitron thought. My little senses are tingling. 

Thankfully, that’s all that was tingling. 

Blot was staring into one of the ventilation fans, the speed of the air blowing the cleanser off his optics. Maybe, Banzaitron speculated, the stench made Blot stupid. 

Which had, perhaps, concerning implications.  Perhaps it was time to wrap this up. “All right, Blot. One last question. Did any of you, at any time, leave?”

Blot tilted his head to one side, then the other.  Then back to the first. “Well...does Sixshot count?”

OutSTANDING.

[***]

“Sixshot, how…lovely to see you again.”

The Phase Sixer glowered, straddling the chair.  “Busy.” 

“I’d heard.  I question your taste.” 

“That what this is about.”  The flat intonation, optics steady and cold from under his helm. 

Well, no.  Banzaitron was not a certified mental health professional. Nor was he credentialed in diagnosing the host of nasty viruses and infections the Terrorcons, aka the ‘Hygiene? What’s That? Cons’ must carry.

“Only so far as they are an alibi.”

“Alibi.”

“I ran the registry.  That shuttle was running a load for Black Shadow.”

Sixshot tilted his head. “Was it.”

Well. Apparently among the many and varied powers and abilities given to Phase Sixers, acting was not one.  “Yes!” Banzaitron would simply have to show him how it was done. “Isn’t that an…amazing coincidence? Two Phase Sixers on Kaph-Renn Wheel and…right next to each other? Have you calculated the odds?”

“Math.” Sixshot waved a hand dismissively.  “Generally go for overkill.”

Banzaitron gave a showy sigh. “Look.  You said you were busy. So we can do this the hard and fast way or the hard and slow way.”

“Propositioning me.” A glint in the optics.  Did Sixshot…what? And why was Banzaitron even thinking about it?

“Hello. Back here.  You know, reality?  You.  Black Shadow.  Really close proximity. And then sudden boom.  Of a high level of magnitude. You know, like…Phase Six.”

Sixshot stared at him for a long moment, weighing, considering. “Dealing with Reapers,” he said, finally, as if so many syllables actually hurt.

“Black Shadow.”

A nod. 

Huh.  “So you….”

“Took care of it.”

“Ah.”  Well, that certainly put a spin on things.  “Proof?”

“Holovids.”  An eloquent shrug.  “On Devil King.”

“I’ll need to see them.” Banzaitron pushed up out of his chair.  Sixshot remained seated, tracking him with his optics.  “Come on. Take me back.”

“Propositioning me.” Sixshot tilted his helm, curious, amused. 

Erm.

“Off the record…?”

Comments

[ravynfyre.livejournal.com]

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

ILU so hard.

[eaten-by-bears.livejournal.com]

That was hilarious. I love your Terrorcons. And I love Sixshot for loving them too.

[ultharkitty.livejournal.com]

Awww, Blot's so helpful! lol, that was highly entertaining :)

[macboris.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, oh yes.

I must agree with Sinnertwin. Sixshot as a Wolf is extremely hot.

[caiusmajor.livejournal.com]

Oh my. Poor Banzaitron. *GIGGLES*

[aughoti (from livejournal.com)]

Hee! This was far too funny. Slightly manic giggles gave way to just plain crying with laughter at this point:

The Decepticon Interrogations Field Manual had several chapters devoted to the unrewarding and difficult task of interrogating other Decepticons. Most of them gave good advice, such as Chapter 37: Interrogating Vortex: “Don’t.”

...and then it got even funnier. Thank you, I needed that after this week!